Abstract: Consists of Uchida's correspondence, writings, and professional files, along with a small amount of personal and family papers,
providing insight into the life of a successful and distinguished author, as well as her experiences as a Japanese-American
growing up in Berkeley, Calif., and internment camps during the war years. Uchida's correspondence chiefly concerns business
with publishers and other professionals in the literary publishing trade, and includes a large amount of fan mail. Her writings
contain manuscripts of both published and unpublished works, including books, short stories, folktales, articles, and poetry.
Her professional papers contain biographical and autobiographical information, as well as her bibliographies, awards, notes,
and transcripts for appearances and speeches, interviews, and other professional activities.
Uchida's personal papers contain writings she did as a child, with other memorabilia, as well as diaries and journals, personal
documents and miscellaneous papers, as well as memorabilia from several memorial services and exhibits held after her death.
The Uchida family papers include correspondence among the immediate family, along with a few papers of her parents, Takashi
("Dwight") and Iku Uchida. Of special interest are those materials concerning relocation and redress, which include correspondence
written by family members during their internment, scrapbooks, diaries, drawings and watercolors, and miscellaneous publications
regarding internment.

Languages Represented: Collection materials are in English

Physical Location: Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information
on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.

Information for Researchers

Access

Collection is open for research.

Publication Rights

Copyrights have been assigned to The Bancroft Library. Materials in this collection is protected by the U.S. Copyright Law
(Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction of some materials may be restricted by terms of University of California
gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction
of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners.
Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility
for any use rests exclusively with the user.

All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the
Head of Public Services, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000. See:
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/reference/permissions.html .

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog

Okubo, Miné, correspondent

Okubo, Miné--Correspondence

Uchida, Iku Umegaki

Uchida, Takashi ("Dwight")

Uchida, Yoshiko--Archives

Uchida, Yoshiko--Correspondence

American literature--Japanese American uthors

Children's literature, American

Japanese Americans--California--Berkeley

Japanese Americans--California--Biography

Japanese Americans--California--History

Japanese Americans--Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945

Women authors, American--20th century

Autobiographies

Awards

Diaries

Family papers

Galley proofs (Printing)

Illustrations

Interviews

Juvenilia

Manuscripts for publication

Scrapbooks

Sketchbooks

Administrative Information

Acquisition Information

The Yoshiko Uchida Papers were given to The Bancroft Library by Yoshiko Uchida in increments beginning in 1984. The final
addition to her papers was made by the Estate of Yoshiko Uchida in December 1992.

Yoshiko Uchida was born in Alameda, California in 1921, the second daughter of Takashi ("Dwight") and Iku Umegaki Uchida.
Dwight Uchida immigrated to the United States from Japan in 1903 and worked for the San Francisco offices of Mitsui and Company,
where he eventually became a manager. Iku Umegaki, the eldest daughter of a prefectural governor of Japan, immigrated to the
U.S. in 1916 to marry Dwight Uchida. Both were graduates of Doshisha University, one of the early Christian universities of
Japan, and were early and active members of the Sycamore Congregational Church in El Cerrito, Calif.

Uchida and her older sister, Keiko ("Kay"), grew up in Berkeley, Calif. By Uchida's own account, her family was close-knit
and supportive. The written word was very important to Uchida's parents: her mother wrote poetry, the thirty-one syllable
Japanese tanka, and her father was a prolific correspondent. Uchida's own interest in writing began early. At the age of ten,
she wrote stories such as "Jimmy Chipmunk and His Friends" and "Willie the Squirrel" on brown wrapping paper. Uchida attended
Longfellow School in Berkeley and University High School in Oakland. She graduated with honors from the University of California
in 1942, with a B.A. in English, Philosophy, and History.

Uchida, however, was unable to attend her graduation ceremonies. After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the
United States entered World War II, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, forcing the removal of all persons of
Japanese descent (both American citizens and non-citizens) living on the western coast of the United States into centralized
detention camps. Dwight Uchida was arrested, detained, and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Missoula, Montana. Uchida and
her mother and sister had only ten days to pack all their possessions and vacate the house where they had lived for fifteen
years. In May 1942, they were removed to the Tanforan Racetrack Relocation Center, where Yoshiko received her university diploma
in the horse stall that served as temporary barracks for the evacuees.

Eventually, Dwight Uchida was allowed to join his family at Tanforan, and in September 1942, the Uchida family was transferred
to the Topaz Relocation Camp in the Utah desert. In May 1943, both Yoshiko and Kay were able to leave the relocation camp.
Kay, who had a degree in child development, left to work in the nursery school of the Department of Education of Mount Holyoke
College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Yoshiko, with the help of the National Student Relocation Council, left to attend
Smith College in Northampton, Mass., where she was awarded a graduate fellowship and received a Masters in Education. Dwight
and Iku Uchida were eventually sponsored to leave Topaz for Salt Lake City, and finally settled in Philadelphia before the
end of the war.

After graduation from Smith College, Uchida taught elementary school at a small Quaker school on the outskirts of Philadelphia.
She soon found that she had no time to devote to writing and also became ill with mononucleosis. She moved to New York City,
where her sister was teaching in a private school, and worked as a secretary during the day to keep her evenings free for
writing. Uchida wrote short stories and submitted them to magazines, but met with little success until she discovered her
niche as a children's author. In 1949, her first book, The Dancing Kettle, was published, followed in 1951 by New Friends
for Susan.

In 1952, Uchida was awarded a Ford Foundation Foreign Study and Research Fellowship to Japan. While there, Uchida learned
about Japanese folk art from the three prominent men who founded the Japanese Folk Art Movement: the philosopher, Soetsu Yanagi,
and master potters, Shoji Hamada and Kanjiro Kawai. Uchida wrote a series of feature articles about the Folk Art Movement
for the Nippon Times, as well as a monograph about Kanjiro Kawai. On her return to the U.S., she served as the west coast
correspondent for Craft Horizons magazine.

After Uchida returned from Japan, she settled in Oakland, Calif., to care for her parents, who were both in poor health. Iku
Uchida died in 1966, and Dwight Uchida followed in 1971. After her father's death, Uchida moved into her own apartment in
Berkeley, where she lived and worked for the remainder of her life.

Over the course of her career, Uchida wrote more than forty published works. Her books include Journey to Topaz, Journey Home,
and Desert Exile, which draw on her experiences during World War II; The Dancing Kettle, The Magic Listening Cap, and The
Sea of Gold, which are compilations of folktales that she collected as a child and while in Japan; an autobiography, The Invisible
Thread; and the adult novel, Picture Bride. In addition to writing, Uchida made personal appearances, gave talks and speeches,
and answered the many letters from her fans.

Uchida was honored with many awards, including the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, two Commonwealth Club of California Juvenile
Book Award Medals, the University of Oregon Distinguished Service Award, the California Japanese Alumni Association Award,
the California Reading Association Award, the Japanese American of the Biennium Award, the Japanese American Citizen's League
Award, the Nikkei in Education Award, and the Morris S. Rosenblatt Award from the Utah State Historical Society.

Uchida suffered from ill health during the later years of her life, which curtailed her writing and her public appearances.
She died in Berkeley on June 21, 1992.

Scope and Content

The Yoshiko Uchida Papers, 1903-1994, consist of correspondence, writings, and her professional files, along with a small
amount of personal and family papers, predominately from the years 1942 to 1992. The collection provides insight into the
life of a successful and distinguished author, as well as the experience of a Japanese American citizen during a critical
period in United States history. It offers information about Uchida's creative process as a writer, and also provides valuable
primary historical information about the Japanese American experience during World War II.

Uchida was a private person; very little truly personal correspondence is found in the collection. Her general correspondence
chiefly concerns business with publishers and other professionals in the literary publishing trade, and a large number of
fan letters. Uchida's correspondence, however, reveals much about her tactful, polite, yet strong personality, and the habits
of a hard-working writer. Uchida was a diligent and careful correspondent; she kept copies of her outgoing letters and took
notes on the substance of her replies and telephone conversations.

Uchida's writings contain manuscripts of both published and unpublished works. Her published works are mainly books for children,
while her unpublished works encompass a wider spectrum, including adult short stories, articles, and poetry. The collection
reflects the changing currents in American culture in the latter part of the twentieth century, when literature written by
and for minorities and women began to emerge and grow in importance.

Uchida's professional papers contain biographical and autobiographical information, as well as her bibliographies, awards,
notes, and transcripts for appearances and speeches, interviews, and other professional activities. Her personal papers include
writings she did as a child, with other memorabilia, as well as diaries and journals, personal documents, and the mass of
information she gathered about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and other health issues during the last year of her life. Memorabilia
from several memorial services and exhibits that were held after Uchida's death has also been added here.

The Uchida family papers include correspondence among the immediate family and contain letters Yoshiko wrote to her parents
while she was in Japan during a Ford Fellowship. She kept her parents' legal documents and notes about their funeral arrangements,
as well as some of her mother's poems. Of special interest are the papers regarding relocation and redress. These include
correspondence written by members of the Uchida family during their internment, scrapbooks, diaries, drawings and watercolors,
and publications regarding internment, and as well as information Uchida collected on redress.

During the course of processing, some fragile originals have been restricted from routine use; photocopies of these documents
have been made and placed in the collection for use.

Container Listing

Arranged alphabetically, and then chronologically, with incoming and outgoing correspondence inter-filed.

Scope and Content Note

Divided into two sub-series: General Correspondence and Correspondence with Fans. Uchida often re-used paper to make carbon
copies of her correspondence to others, so letters may be copied onto the versos of other letters, drafts, or other documents.

General Correspondence, including Uchida's correspondence with her publishers, contains handwritten and typewritten letters,
both in original and carbon copies, telegrams, cards, postcards, and manuscript notes.

Correspondence with Fans is further divided into two sub-subseries: Schools and Individuals. Letters written by classes as
a group activity are filed under Schools, while letters from both adults and children who did not know Uchida personally but
who wrote to express their appreciation of her work, are found under Individuals. Both are arranged first by state of origin,
and then, where applicable, by city and school name, with letters from the United States found before that of other countries.
Correspondence with Fans contains handwritten and typed letters, cards, and children's art work.

Writings, which contains both published and unpublished works, are arranged in alphabetical order by title, and within each
title, an outline or synopsis (if available) is filed first, then the draft(s) of the text, followed by materials regarding
the publication of the work (where applicable), such as illustrations, printing proofs, publicity materials, reviews, and
fan letters that Uchida had obviously gathered together with the working files for a few selected titles. Working notes and
research are grouped by subject. Some correspondence regarding Uchida's writings may be found in the General Correspondence
sub-series of Series 1.

Divided into seven sub-series: Bio-bibliographical, Awards and Honors, Talks and Invitations, Interviews, Professional Activities
and Organizations, Donations to Institutions, and Permissions, Royalties, and Copyrights.

Bio-Bibliographical contains bibliographies, autobiographical and biographical statements, and clippings, and is followed
by Awards and Honors (arranged alphabetically by name of award). Talks and Invitations (arranged chronologically) includes
correspondence, flyers, clippings, and occasionally the text of Uchida's talks or reference notes. Interviews contains a log
of interviews and Uchida's interview notes (arranged chronologically), with published interviews filed last. Professional
Activities and Organizations (arranged alphabetically) includes program files, followed by miscellaneous materials, and a
daily planner.

The last two sub-series concern donations to institutions and Uchida's files concerning permissions, royalties, and copyrights.
These include details of donor agreements, and requests for permissions to publish, as well as royalty and copyright statements
and related correspondence.

Listings of Yoshiko Uchida manuscript items or collections held by other institutions have been provided by those curators
and are included as Appendix A.

Bio-Bibliographical.1944-1994

box 50, folder 1-2

Bibliographies1972-91

folder 3

Photocopies of photos of Yoshiko Uchidaundated

folder 4

Curriculum vitae1944-57

folder 5

Autobiographical sketches1947-91

folder 6

"My Objectives as a Writer"1982

Biographies

folder 7

Biographical statements1958-86

folder 8

"An Artist Who Searches for Her Roots" by Bill Hosokawa (in Japanese)1986

folder 9

"History Makers: Yoshiko Uchida"1987

Excerpt from "United States History "

folder 10

"A Question of Loyalty"1988

Excerpt from "The Elusive Eden, A New History of California "

folder 11

"Contemporary American Success Stories"1994

folder 12

Clippings from newsletters and other publications1958-91

folder 13

Newspaper clippings1953-87undated

folder 14

Term paper on Yoshiko Uchida by Sadako Kashiwagi1986

Awards and Honors.1955-1992

box 51, folder 1

Bay Area Book Reviewers Award1986

folder 2

California Japanese Alumni Association Award1982

folder 3

California Reading Association Award1981

folder 4-5

Commonwealth Club Awards19731982

folder 6

Herstory for Futures Unlimited (honorary membership)1991-92

folder 7-9

Japanese American of the Biennium Awards (JACL)19841988

folder 10-11

Japanese American Citizen's League Awards19761982

folder 12

Japanese National Advisory Council Certificate of Recognition1976

folder 13

Morris S. Rosenblatt Award (Utah State Historical Society)1981

folder 14

National Women's History Project1989-90

oversize-box 13, folder 10

Poster, National Women's History Month

box 51, folder 15

The New York Herald Tribune Book Review Award1955

folder 16

Nikkei in Education Award1989

folder 17

San Mateo County Reading Association Young Authors' Hall of Fame1984-85

folder 18

Sycamore Congregational Church Resolution1979

folder 19

University of Oregon Distinguished Service Award1981

Talks and Invitations.1955-1992

box 52, folder 1-8

Invitations, correspondence, flyers, and clippings1955-80

box 53, folder 1-7

Invitations, correspondence, flyers, clippings, and speeches1981-83

box 54, folder 1

Invitations, correspondence, flyers, clippings, and speeches1984

folder 2

Sherman Public Library and Sherman Public Schools, Sherman, Texas1984

oversize-box 13, folder 11

"Focus on Sherman Schools"Feb. 26, 1984

box 54, folder 3

Speeches1984

folder 4-6

Invitations, correspondence, flyers, clippings, and speeches1985-87

folder 7

The Children's Literature Center of the Library of Congress, Symposium: Window on Japan1987

Contains Uchida's earliest childhood writings and other memorabilia, diaries, school records, material from her early career,
and fellowship applications, followed by personal documents, including a copy of her birth certificate, certification of registration,
and renunciation of Japanese citizenship, passports, property records, and diaries, journals, and articles concerning health
matters. Materials from Uchida's memorial services and exhibits were added after her death.

This material was selectively digitized from a larger resource or collection.

Indexing Terms

Diaries

folder 7-10

"My Diary of Important Events"1932-41

Education

folder 11-12

School records1933-44

folder 13-15

Smith College1943-441955

folder 16

Application to Columbia University, School of General Studies1951

Early Career

box 58, folder 1

Frankford Friends School1944

folder 2

The Public Schools of Springfield, Massachusetts1944

folder 3

Teachers College, Columbia University, New York1944

folder 4

American Council, Institute of Pacific Relations, Inc.1947

folder 5

United Student Christian Council1948-51

Fellowships

folder 6-7

Ford Foundation Fellowship application1952-71undated

folder 8

Guggenheim Fellowship application1958-59

Personal Documents

folder 9

Birth Certificate (copy),1953-57

Certification of Registration, Renunciation of Japanese Citizenship

folder 10

Passports1952-80

folder 11

Purchase and sale of home, Oakland, Calif.1950-71

folder 12

Will and related documents1985-92

Memorial gift

folder 13

"Birdsong "by Yoshiko UchidaOct. 1992

folder 14

Acknowledgments and thank-you notes1992

folder 15

Memorial service, Sycamore Congregational ChurchNov. 14, 1992

folder 16

Memorial service and exhibit, University of California, BerkeleyJan.-Apr. 1993

folder 17

Memorial program, Alameda County LibraryJune 1994

Miscellaneous

folder 18

Reading journalundated

folder 19

Travel1975-86

folder 20

Earl Palmer sermons1975-78

folder 21

Masao Takenaka lecture1985

folder 22

Notes

folder 23-24

Newspaper clippings1953-92undated

folder 25

Clippings from magazines and journals1986-90undated

oversize-box 13, folder 13

"The Great Blue Heron," woodblock by A. Elliot Offnerundated

box 60, folder 14

Scrapbook1975-1991

Health matters

box 59, folder 1-16

Diaries, journals, clippings, articles,and notes1974-92undated

box 60, folder 1-13

Diaries, journals, clippings, articles, and notes1974-92undated

box 67, folder 1

Exile Within by Thomas James (proof)1987

box 67, folder 2

Items removed from book collectionundated

box 67, folder 3

Sycamore Congregational Church1977

box 67, folder 4

Miscellaneousundated

Series 5:
Uchida Family Papers.1903-1991.

Physical Description:
Boxes 61-64; v. 1-2; Oversize Box 12

Scope and Content Note

Divided into three sub-series: Correspondence, Miscellaneous, and Relocation and Redress Papers.

Contains only a small amount of family correspondence, including letters by Yoshiko and her sister, Kay, and their parents,
followed by family history materials, and a few personal papers of Dwight and Iku Uchida.

Relocation and redress papers are arranged with correspondence first, followed by other documents grouped by subject. Of particular
interest are Yoshiko's camp diaries, scrapbook, and drawings of Topaz and Tanforan, along with a scrapbook assembled by her
father.